Driven by rage, our politicians are creating a country ever more divided

HAVE you ever had a blazing row with a friend? I’m talking about a real gloves-off humdinger, where any notion of restraint evaporates in the heat of anger.

For shame, I have, and the visceral feeling of rage remains fresh in the memory. With a shudder, I recall the adrenaline rush as things that should never have been said were hurled as spears. I can still feel the selfrighteous triumphalism of the aftermath, when I justified my cruelty as entirely necessary because my friend had it coming and I had right on my side.

But my most intense memory is the deep self-loathing that, a couple of days later, lapped up over my head and dragged me down. I had crossed a line of decency, I’d broken something and – although we later shook hands and exchanged sincere apologies – my friend and I drifted apart.

Two decades on, I cringe at the memory. I recognised emotional weaknesses in another person and I went in hard. It was no way for a man to behave. My only comfort is that the shame I still feel acts as a constant reminder that if one wishes to lash out, it is not only the victim who suffers; our anger diminishes us more than those who feel the brunt of it.

We live in angry times, don’t we, where rage and blame and simplistic solutions to complex problems are all too common?

There will be a price to pay for this fury. The US – a nation which has given the world much to admire – is, right now, horribly divided by the campaign to elect a new president.

As Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton looks ever more likely to win, so her Republican rival Donald Trump stokes the anger of his supporters.

When that recording of Mr Trump bragging about how he would force himself on women emerged, the candidate issued a statement of contrition.

Yes, it was half-hearted and, yes, anyone who has paid even the slightest bit of attention to his behaviour over the years will have had very good reason to doubt he was doing anything other than damage limitation.

But at least he did not deny saying those things and admitted it was a genuine recording.

Since then, Mr Trump has gone on the offensive. In the aftermath of the tape’s release, a number of women came forward to describe their own experiences his hands.

Their stories were sad and troubling; they spoke of being victims of a man who treated them as subhuman, who had abused and terrorised them.

It took great courage for these women to speak. Many of them had lived in undeserved shame for years, internalising experiences that had left them emotionally scarred.

When they spoke up, they not only sent a message to Mr Trump that he could not behave as he had with impunity – they encouraged others to describe their experiences.

Depressingly, though unsurprisingly, Mr Trump reacted with incandescent fury. He was the victim of a conspiracy orchestrated by liars. Nothing described by his alleged victims had ever happened.

The tycoon’s rage spread, infecting his supporters. Many who have bought this repellent demagogue’s lies about ‘making America great again’ lashed out at his accusers. And then, at his behest, the media for reporting their ‘lies’.

Rigged

Mr Trump now tells his supporters that the November 8 poll has been rigged against ‘them’. The ‘Establishment’ – now a word devoid of meaning – has already decided that they are to be denied victory.

Trump supporters – already whipped into a frenzy by his attacks on Mexicans and Muslims – grow ever more enraged. A number have talked about their plans for election day, which involve gathering at polling stations to intimidate anyone who doesn’t fit their vision of a true American (which, it is reasonable to assume, means anyone who isn’t white).

Mr Trump is on course to lose the presidential election but while that might thwart his political ambitions, his defeat will not take the heat out of the rage his supporters already feel. In fact, there is a very real fear that their anger will boil over into violence. Anger, as former Sex Pistols frontman turned butter salesman John Lydon once sang, is an energy and it has to go somewhere.

We should be wary, here in the UK, of writing off the sort of behaviour we see across the Atlantic as a problem solely afflicting the US. Our own political leaders have been guilty of fomenting anger in order to garner support.

One thinks back to the 2014 independence referendum when the then-leader of the SNP, Alex Salmond, described protests outside the BBC – in which Yes campaigners called for the sacking of journalists – as ‘peaceful and joyous’.

The scenes outside BBC headquarters in Glasgow – and in other protests against the corporation – were ugly, fuelled by resentment and paranoia.

Mr Salmond’s suggestion to the contrary amounted to tacit encouragement to anyone on his side of the constitutional argument to get involved in similar demonstrations.

This exhaustingly shrill tone has continued under Nicola Sturgeon’s leadership. At the Nationalists’ conference, last week, an MSP suggested that the Conservative Government, under Prime Minister Theresa May, resembles the Nazis.

Such hysterical rhetoric passes by, unremarked upon by party members who seem to think it acceptable.

When Gregg Brain, an Australian who faced deportation over visa issues, appeared on stage at the SNP conference wearing a yellow badge, nobody in the audience protested that this apparent nod to the badges Jews were obliged by the Nazis to wear was in poor taste.

The incoherent fury that allows people to believe Mrs May is somehow comparable to Hitler meant Mr Brain’s display was judged as legitimate.

The behaviour of leading politicians during the campaign to decide whether the UK would retain its EU membership suggests that referendums provide fertile ground upon which fury may be nurtured. Ukip leader Nigel Farage exploited concerns – both legitimate and unfounded – about immigration to bolster his Leave case.

Yes, he might have spoken about ‘taking back control’ and ‘sovereignty’ but as he stood, smirking, in front of a poster showing terrified refugees making their way through Europe, it was clear his campaign was about demonising a group of people and, thus, fuelling his campaign with fury.

A great many supporters of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn are driven by rage. There have been ugly protests against MPs who don’t share his out-of-date Left-wing view of the world

Female MPs have received death and rape threats. Members of the Jewish community now feel Labour is unsafe for them because of the rampant expression of anti-Semitic views by Corbyn supporters.

Mr Corbyn may talk of a kinder, gentler politics but his words do not reflect the reality of the Labour Party today.

It is now withering, becoming a sect that sees conspiracies, enemies in the shadows, reacting aggressively to the slightest criticism. His supporters, like Mr Trump’s, are heading for crushing electoral disappointment and, when it comes, they will have reserves of anger, ready to be unleashed.

Cronies

Upon election defeat, will those members hear from Mr Corbyn and his cronies – such as shadow chancellor John McDonnell and shadow home secretary Diane Abbott – words of comfort and conciliation? Will they be encouraged to think again about the message they’ve sent the public? Will they heck. Mr Corbyn – through his network of allies – will allow a narrative of victory denied by malign forces to take hold. The extremists of the Socialist Workers Party and other sectarian groups now lined up behind the Labour leader will lash out at anyone who fails their loyalty test and agitate for action on the streets.

Anger already simmering will spill over and spread, creating a country yet more divided.

If wise and calm voices cannot be heard over the howls of rage coming from the political extremes, a new line marking what is acceptable will be drawn. And with that new standard set, the anger that’s eating away at our society will only become more voracious.

GRAHAM GRANT IS AWAY